So, I have this problem with finishing stories. I currently have two ideas for books started on my computer, but once I open the document, convinced I am going to write I hit a wall. I just sit and stare at the cursor...hoping that the next part of the story will come. I started to write another short story a while back and got stuck again, but I decided to share the beginning of that story here, with you, my loyal blogosphere compadres. Warning: it does not have the happiest ending right now but I'm hoping that in sharing it here I'll find the motivation to finish it off! It's also just a draft, so bear with me loyal friends.
Richard paced around his room, his hands clenched by his
side and his face covered in sweat and tears. He had been pacing around his
bedroom for hours. He paced from one side to the next, back and forth, around
and around. His heart ached within him pounding furiously, he had a headache
from crying and his body was exhausted.
He knew he couldn’t pace for much longer, but the thought of
crawling into bed, again, without her, tore him apart. The thought of going to
bed and having memories run through his head again and again was unbearable.
Memories of good times and times that he wished that he could go back and
change, memories of heartache and joy. It didn’t just stop at his own memories;
he would get pulled into news articles that he had read, stories from hurting
friends that they had shared with him and then up he would get, in the middle
of the night, and pace. The pain in his heart felt unbearable, and his
inability to understand the pain, the hurt and the suffering that surrounded
him on all sides frustrated him.
“How long God? Seriously how LONG are you going to let this
go on? We’ve been waiting and waiting for thousands of years. Do you here us
crying? Do you hear your people? Oh God, we suffer and we break... do you
really suffer and break with us?!”
Richard threw his hands in the air. This was the question he
was asking, night after night, day after day. As that heartbreaking day moved
further away and new pains were added in he was not sure how God could stand
it. But yet, he knew, somewhere deep within him that God was suffering with
him. That, as much as his pain felt like it would break him that he was not
experiencing it alone. He knew that on that night when he picked up that phone
expecting to hear his wife telling him that her and their daughter had arrived
safely at his in-laws but instead hearing the unfamiliar voice of a nurse from
the soon to be very familiar hospital that God was there crying out with him,
wishing to stop the pain. He knew that when he slipped onto the floor beside
the bed and cried for hours when the battle was finally all over for his wife
and his precious little girl that God sat with him and wrapped him in his arms,
crying over his pain and crying with him in his suffering. He knew that God
understood how much he missed his daughter.
Richard’s heart ached as he thought of his daughter dancing
in the living room, laughing outside in the sun as she ran through the
sprinkler, sitting on the stairs and pouting up at him with her arms crossed
refusing to clean up her toys, sleeping peacefully in her bed. His heart also
ached because of all the moments that he no longer would experience with her,
so much that she never got the chance to do but yet also, so much pain that she
never had to experience. But when he thought of his daughter and her smiling
face he could not help but se his wife, her optimism, joy and zeal for life.
His wife, whom he loved quietly but deeply. Oh! How he
missed her. He missed her laughter, her comfort, her warmth. This hard journey
may have been easier if he could walk through it with her. But she, the love of
his life, had also been taken from him. Yet, in these moments of pain when he
could hear no other voice sometimes he would hear hers, whispering to him
softly, reminding him where to turn.
But at times it seemed impossible to escape the ache the
filled his heart. He longed to see them again, longed to say one last word to
them, laugh over one last moment with them, and hug them one last time. He knew
where to turn but at times he would turn there to God, to his friends and
family and he wouldn’t find what he felt he needed. At times he would turn to
them and would find anger instead of comfort. Anger that they were living their
lives as though nothing happened, anger with God for taking away from him what
he loved most in the world. But his anger would quickly turn to a desperate
plea to God to let him be with his daughter and wife, or a peace would consume
him that let him know that God understood his pain.
Richard sat down on his bed, his elbows on his knees with
his head bent forward. Tears streamed down his face, he had long ago stopped
brushing them aside, knowing that more would follow.
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